AGING EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: WHERE WE ARE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Abstract Aging education at the precollege level is relatively new in the United States, making its debut in the literature in the 1960s (Myers, 1977). The first White House Conference on Aging (WHCoA) in 1961, centered on the need for aging education and recommended it be integrated into curricula in public schools, higher education institutions, and libraries (McGuire, 2017). At the 1971 WHCoA it was noted that such educational efforts were indeed rare and again recommended that aging and life cycle education be mandatory at all levels of education, programs be developed to train teachers about aging, and older citizens be used as school volunteers (McGuire, 2017). Since then, aging curricula and intergenerational programming have made their way slowly and insufficiently into education at both the pk-12 and college levels. Interestingly, more recently, it seems more for-profit organizations are investing in aging education and training versus educational institutions to educate their workforce to better meet the needs of their older consumer base to increase their profit margins. Beyond profit margins, what is the heuristic value of aging education and why is it increasingly important and needed not only in the United States, but worldwide? This paper will kick off the symposium and set the stage with a retrospective account of what factors have propelled aging education in the United States and what we have learned to move aging education forward at both the pk-12 and higher education levels.


"I DON'T KNOW WHO GETS MORE OUT OF IT": OLDER ADULTS' EXPERIENCES WITH THE ONLINE INTERGENERATIONAL TUTORING PROGRAM
Edward Miller 1 , Jessica Hoffman 2 , James Hermelbracht 1 , Jeffrey Burr 1 , and Jan Mutchler 1 , 1. University of Massachusetts Boston,Boston,Massachusetts,United States,2. Northeastern University,Boston,Massachusetts,United States Due to pandemic-related academic and social stressors experienced by children and social isolation and loneliness experienced by older adults, a team of school psychologists and gerontologists collaborated with older adults to develop the Online Intergenerational Tutoring Program.Conceived in fall 2020, the program is now in its third year of implementation.The program addresses a service delivery gap in schools because older adult volunteers expand schools' capacity to implement reading instruction with students in need of support.Older adults share their time and talents with young children and children benefit from the care, attention, and instruction from older adults.Tutors meet with students after school 3-4 times per week over a 6-8-week period over Zoom; each of the 24 sessions last 30 minutes.Evaluation data show the program is socially valid, tutors deliver instruction with accuracy, students have high engagement, and there are literacy gains among students.

CELEBRATING CENTENARIANS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: PROMOTING POSITIVE VIEWS OF AGING AMONG YOUNG CHILDREN
Cynthia Hancock 1 , Tina Newsham 2 , Daniel Alston 1 , Elizabeth Fugate-Whitlock 2 , and Katherina Nikzad-Terhune 3 , 1. UNC Charlotte,Charlotte,North Carolina,United States,2. University of North Carolina Wilmington,Wilmington,North Carolina,United States,3. Northern Kentucky University,Highland Heights,Kentucky,United States Upon learning that some teachers celebrate the 100th day of school by asking young children to dress up "like a 100-year-old," the presenters questioned what ideas about aging are reinforced by such an activity.Social media images reveal that many of these activities lead to stereotypical presentations of older people.Additionally, the "fun" activity of dressing like a centenarian teaches children that it is okay to have fun at the expense of another segment of the population and reinforces the belief that older people are frail, weak, confused, and out of touch.Partnering with experts in early childhood and elementary education, the presenters created a toolkit to offer accurate information about centenarians, aging, and ageism and to give teachers options for celebrating the 100th day of school that reinforce important academic content, address prekindergarten to second-grade learning standards/outcomes, and support age-inclusivity.The presenters will share data from a pilot study of the curriculum and suggest next steps for advancing aging education among very young learners.

INTER-ORGANELLE CROSSTALK IN THE REGULATION OF AGING AND LONGEVITY Chair: Meng Wang
In eukaryotic cells, specific functions are compartmentalized into various organelles that are evolutionarily conserved across species.Many of these organelles play crucial roles in regulating cellular homeostasis and organismal health.Lysosomes, mitochondria, lipid droplets, and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are highly metabolic active and support the metabolic balance of lipids, amino acids, carbohydrates, and nucleotides.These organelles also regulate signal transduction, transcriptional responses, and epigenetic dynamics, and contribute to the control of lifespan and healthspan in a variety of organisms.Importantly, these organelles do not act in isolation, instead exhibit complex intercommunication at structural, metabolic and signaling levels.The dysfunction of these organelles and their intercommunications have been associated with aging and age-related pathologies.This symposium aims to encourage innovative studies on the role of organelle interactions and communications in regulating aging and longevity.Speakers have been invited to share their new findings in this research topic.We will discuss how lysosomal metabolism couples with lysosomal signaling to regulate organelle crosstalk, tissue communication, and organism lifespan; how ER and mitochondria communicate through calcium signaling and promote longevity; how lipid droplets play a novel role in remodeling carbohydrate metabolism and define the metabolic balance in supporting organism health; and how lysosomal activity, mitochondrial function and cytosolic proteostasis orchestrate to support cellular homeostasis.

LYSOSOMAL SIGNALS IN LONGEVITY REGULATION ACROSS THE SCALE Meng Wang, Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, Virginia, United States
Lysosomes are key organelles in the cell that constitute an acidic subcellular environment and contain approximately 60 different types of hydrolytic enzymes.With the aid of these acidic hydrolytic enzymes, lysosomes are highly metabolically active and can digest various macromolecules delivered through endocytosis, phagocytosis, and autophagy.Moreover, lysosomes function as a "signaling hub" that integrates metabolic inputs, organelle interaction, and longevity control.Our studies discovered a pro-longevity lysosomal acidic lipase that activates a lysosome-to-nucleus retrograde lipid signaling pathway in Caenorhabditis elegans, and in turn revealed the critical role of this lysosomal lipid signaling in promoting oxidative stress tolerance and lipid catabolism through tuning mitochondrial activities.Furthermore, we discovered that this lysosomal lipase induces the release of lipid messengers from peripheral metabolic tissues, which act on neurons and lead to the up-regulation of the neuropeptide signaling pathway by activating a nuclear hormone receptor.More recently, lysosome-specific proteomic profiling has revealed that AMPK is specifically recruited to the lysosome upon lysosomal lipolysis and mediates the longevity effect, suggesting a previously unknown interaction between AMPK and lysosomal lipid signaling.Together, these findings highlight the crucial role of lysosomal signals in actively coordinating organelle crosstalk and tissue communication to improve longevity and promote healthy aging.

ER CALCIUM SIGNALING COORDINATES MITOCHONDRIAL DYNAMICS AND METABOLIC FUNCTION TO PROMOTE LONGEVITY Kristopher Burkewitz, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Inter-organelle communication is a critical determinant of cellular metabolic homeostasis, and defects in the interactions between organelles are increasingly correlated with age-dependent diseases.Despite these promising links, exploration of how inter-organelle signaling pathways can be targeted to promote healthy organismal aging is a nascent area of research.We have established a foundation in C. elegans to investigate how the communication between endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria, two of the most central metabolic hubs in cells, controls the aging process.Combining electron microscopy, live-imaging and biochemical approaches, we provide evidence that C. elegans forms ER-mitochondrial contacts and that through molecular mechanisms conserved to mammals, ER calcium flux potently stimulates mitochondrial bioenergetics.Furthermore, genetic manipulation of the ER inositol triphosphate receptor (InsP3R) reveals that ER calcium signaling promotes mitochondrial homeostasis at multiple other levels, including mitochondrial gene expression and dynamics.Building on this foundation, we now reveal that ER calcium signaling is essential for longevity in contexts of mitochondrial reprogramming.Surprisingly, InsP3R-stimulated mitochondrial bioenergetics do not appear to be the key mechanism of longevity in these contexts, but rather the underappreciated roles of the ER in tuning mitochondrial gene expression and morphology.Our results thus highlight the InsP3R as a potent and central regulator of diverse mitochondrial properties and reveal that the connections between ER and mitochondria are deeper and more complex than current models suggest.Overall, we reveal that inter-organelle communication between ER and mitochondria is an essential mechanism of longevity in paradigms involving mitochondrial reprogramming.

DEFINING METABOLIC BALANCE BETWEEN SUGAR AND FAT METABOLISM, AND THEIR ROLES IN DEVELOPMENT AND FERTILITY" Mike Henne, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center , Dallas, Texas, United States
Animals store excess nutrients in two major forms: triglycerides (TGs) held within lipid droplets (LDs) and carbohydrates in the form of glycogen.These nutrient reserves can serve specialized roles in animal development and homeostasis, but how they uniquely contribute to animal growth, bioenergetics, aging, and fertility is poorly understood.Furthermore, it is unclear how loss of one nutrient storage